| An American nuclear scientist who helped discover several chemical elements on the periodic table. |
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| He was born in Vallejo, California and grew up in Alameda, California. As a teenager, he built radio circuitry and earned a reputation for reaching radio frequency distances that outdid the military. |
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| He received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 1937. After graduation, he worked for a company that produced emergency communication devices, and invented the world's first commercial Geiger counter, which evolved into his participation in the Manhattan Project. |
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| He was introduced to
Glenn T. Seaborg
through a mutual friendship between their wives who also worked as secretaries at the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory. |
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| Seaborg and Ghiorso's collaboration was most fruitful in the early days of the cyclotron, when its reuslts were hard to identify and detect. Their work resulted in many elements being discovered at UC Berkeley, and Ghiorso is credited with having co-discovered the following elements: |
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Americium
around 1945,
Curium
in 1944,
Berkelium
in 1949,
Californium
in 1950,
Einsteinium
in 1952,
Fermium
in 1953,
Mendelevium
in 1955,
Nobelium
in 1958-59,
Lawrencium
in 1961,
Rutherfordium
in 1969,
Hahnium
in 1970 and
Seaborgium
in 1974. |
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